Day 9: Our new best friend

Today we woke to snow on the ground, Exile #3 finally made it to school and they both made it through the day, although the snow's survival was patchy. The rest of the week looks set for a few more snow showers and all below-freezing weather, so we may get used to it.

The principal at the school said that normally at this time of year the ground would all be completely buried in 2-3 feet of snow, and our landlady's daughter said how she'd been enjoying the mild winter right up until she watched Al Gore's An Uncomfortable Truth. Well apparently last winter was unusually snow-less, so there's certainly room for wondering if it is a change rather than an aberration.

One way in which the planet is being saved here (probably) is pictured, the near-ubiquitous waste disposal. Ours has the wonderful name IN-SINK-ERATOR. Instead of collecting green-waste in a lorry from smelly bins, everything is shredded under the sink by this device and carried away by the sewers. Exile #2 says the process of posting bits of left-over food into this hole (carefully avoiding becoming disposal-feed ourselves) makes her think of feeding a pet dragon - the sounds certainly fit. I remember there being a spate of enthusiasm for these devices in the UK in my youth, but they never seemed to catch on. Maybe the novelty will wear-off for us too, but for now it seems remarkably useful. Whether the power used by a street's worth of houses running the little electric-motors and whatever happens when the waste water is processed actually use more or less carbon than a green-waste collection I'll leave you to argue amongst yourselves.